As promised, the Pacifica Forum revisited the topic of Martin Luther King, Jr. yesterday, the anniversary of his assassination. However, unlike last time, when a PF speaker called King a “moral leper and communist dupe“, this week’s lecture focused on the “right-wing, corporate, militarist conspiracy that targeted King in 1968 and that still controls our country and its policies with its propaganda today.”

Longtime Pacifica Forum member George Beres claimed that King’s assassination, as well as the Kennedy’s, were orchestrated by a powerful “shadow government.” Not only that, but he claimed the populace at large has been brainwashed by said shadow government’s subtle and insidious propaganda (perpetuated by a complicit mass media, of course). You should probably pop a couple of Valium before you

Of course, what sort of Pacifica Forum meeting would it be if Beres didn’t bring up the “illegal state of Israel”? At one point, he went on a tangent about the Israel Lobby to explain how we are “subtly and gradually being brainwashed to accept the Israeli point of view”:

“All I am saying to you is be alert, particularly in situations where those taking the Islamic, Palestinian or Israeli side couch their phrases, their words and their presentations (and maybe you feel that I am guilty of this) with words and phrases that convince you they must be right, when all along they are subtly propagandizing you. If I am, be alert to that in my words. “

Duly noted.

The rest of Beres’ lecture was fairly standard conspiracy fare. He claimed that Bobby Kennedy and King were both assassinated by the shadow government because of their opposition to the Vietnam War, which was hugely profitable to the military-industrial complex. JFK, on the other hand, was bumped off for his opposition to the Federal Reserve. Beres also said that the Warren Commission’s report on the JFK assassination was “just as fictional as the official report on 9/11.”

There were several humorous moments when Beres announced how unsupported his positions were. “I’m making a lot of claims here,” he said, “some of which I can’t corroborate.” Later, he threw up his hands, almost in exasperation, and said, “How do I know [these things]? I don’t know!”

However, this didn’t stop Beres from claiming that the following institutions were part of or controlled by the shadow government:

• Congress
• The CIA
• The Secret Service
• The Israel Lobby
• The mass media
• The military-industrial complex
• Corporate America

Which leads me to wonder who isn’t a part of the shadow government. Frankly, I’m a little hurt that I haven’t received my invitation yet. However, one of the forum regulars commented on my last blog post about the PF and told me that, thanks to my obviously skewed and biased reporting of the group, I should be expecting “contact from the next level of players.” Maybe there’s still hope that I can join the organized Jewry/NWO/shadow government.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 18:18 by CJ Ciaramella and is filed under Campus, Pacifica Forum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.